Jean-Claude Juncker

The European Union leaders decided to grant the United Kingdom another delay for their departure from the EU. The British now have until the end of October to approve a withdrawal agreement. Prime Minister Mark Rutte was satisfied after the hours long EU summit on Wednesday. "It was important that the union continue to function and we achieved that with this decision", he said to NOS.

"Our country was startled today by an attack in Utrecht," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at the beginning of a hastily arranged press conference on Monday afternoon. He was addressing journalists following a shooting inside a tram on the 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht on Monday morning.

"Now it is certain that the passengers on a tram were shot. There were injuries and possibly fatalities," he said. "Our thoughts are with the victims whose lives have been turned upside down."

The European Union and the British government adapted the Brexit agreement on the so-called 'backstop', a safety net meant to ensure that the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland remains open when the United Kingdom leaves the EU. The British House of Commons will vote on this adapted agreement on Tuesday evening. Prime Minister Mark Rutte is pleased that an agreement was reached, he said on Twitter.

The British House of Commons voted against the Brexit deal British Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the European Union. With only two months to go until the United Kingdom leaves the European Union, time is running out to come to a good solution. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other EU leaders are disappointed by the vote.

The vast majority of Dutch are for scrapping daylight savings time, according to a survey among over 1,800 Dutch ordered by Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom relations. 41 percent want to keep winter time all year, approximately a quarter want summer time to be the standard time, and another quarter want to stick to the current system of adjusting the clock twice a year, NOS reports.

The European Commission wants to get rid of daylight saving time in Europe as soon as possible. If Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has his way, Europe will keep their clocks on summer time, as they are now. CDA parliamentarian Annie Schreier-Pierik, whose been fighting for scrapping the biannual time change for years, is happy that something is finally being done, RTL Nieuws reports.

The European Parliament launched a thorough investigation into the appointment of German lawyer Martin Selmayr as Secretary General of the European Commission, which basically puts him in charge of 33 thousand EU officials. This follows a debate on the matter insisted on by, among others, Dutch European Parliamentarians, AD reports.

The parliamentary inquiry comes on top of an ongoing investigation by the European Ombudsman. The European Parliament will make a statement on the appointment next month, and it may even lead to a vote of no confidence.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has mixed feelings about European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker's plans for the European Union, which he revealed in the annual State of the Union address on Wednesday. "I like the short term ideas", Rutte said about the speech. "But there are also issues I like less", AD and the Telegraaf report.

With the dust around the Dutch parliamentary elections starting to settle, congratulations are starting to trickle in for Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his VVD's third consecutive election win. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker all expressed their congratulations to Rutte.

The Netherlands will not apologize to Turkey for the actions taken in Rotterdam on Saturday around the arrival of Turkish Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Mark Rutte said to Het Parool on Wednesday. "The actions taken on Saturday were firm and respectful."

In the first nine months of 2016 Dutch companies exported more to the Ukraine than in the same period last year, according to figures from the European Commission (EC). The total trade between the Netherlands increased by 4 percent to 1.17 billion euros. According to the Commission, this can be attributed to the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine, the trade part of which took effect on January 1st, ANP reports.

The Netherlands voting "no" in the referendum on the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine, has no effect on the agreement itself. The agreement was already signed and unanimously adopted by all EU member states' heads of government, and the Dutch "no" does not change that, a spokesperson for the European Commission said

According to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the Netherlands' plan to ship asylum seekers arriving in Greece back to Turkey on a returning ferry is "illegal". The European Union does not participate in "pushing back" asylum seekers

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warns that a definite "no vote" in the Netherlands' referendum about the association agreement with Ukraine in April will lead to a major crisis. PVV leader Geert Wilders calls this warning "intimidation". D66 leader Alexander Pechtold sees it as a threat.

The European leaders currently attending the refugee talks in Malta, promised their African counterparts a 1.8 billion euro fund aimed at tackling the key causes of mass-migration to Europe. The Netherlands contributed 15 million euros to the fund, the highest contribution so far.

The European Commission has set up a new distribution formula for the redistribution of 120 asylum seekers across the European Union countries. The Netherlands will have to take in 7,214 refugees, on top of the 2,047 refugees assigned to the country before the summer.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Dam Square in Amsterdam on Sunday to express their solidarity with Greece. The European Union will hold an emergency summit on the so-called Grexit on Monday. Greece submitted a final proposal, which Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the European Commission, called a "good basis" for the summit, NRC reports.

The new president of the European Committee, Jean-Claude Juncker, has completed his list of proposed new European commissioners. Minsiter of Foreign Affairs, Frans Timmermans, is on the list representing the Netherlands, the European Union said today.

Just an hour after Minister Frans Timmermans' meeting with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Tuesday, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte confirmed in Parliament that the Foreign Affairs Minister is indeed the Dutch candidate for the new commission